The election of Donald Trump to the presidency has renewed talk about creating some sort of national registry of Muslims entering the United States. In some versions, this is similar to the disastrous Bush database enacted after 9/11.

Though not unexpected given Trump’s campaign rhetoric over the past year and a half, the proposal is still frankly horrifying – not only because it’s a blatantly unconstitutional form of religious discrimination and persecution, but because we’ve seen this before.

Editor's Note: This post originally ran on Thanksgiving Day 2007. It was written by Joe Conn, Americans United's former director of communications. Joe, who retired in July of 2013 after a remarkable 33 years of service to AU, makes the case for being thankful for the church-state wall. Happy Thanksgiving!

By Joe Conn

When you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner today, do you plan to say grace?

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday nominated U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to be attorney general. The attorney general serves as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, responsible for upholding our nation’s laws. Many view Sen. Sessions as a troubling choice, including those of us who fight for religious freedom.

On Wednesday, along with some of my Americans United colleagues, I attended a LGBTQ summit hosted by Atlantic magazine’s Atlantic Live. The summit’s title, “Unfinished Business,” betrayed the organizers’ expectations of who would be our next president. What could have been a reflection on progress was instead a reminder of how much is now at stake and how much remains to be done.